Yes, I can remove the taxonomic specifiers from the name. See below.
alt.nature.fungi.basidio.hymeno.homo.mushrooms will be an unmoderated
newsgroup discussing hunting, growing, eating and other activities related
to mushroom-bearing fungi, be they nutritious, hallucinogenic, poisonous,
whatever.
The Name
--------
'Alt' because I'm not sure it would pass a 100+ vote in 'rec'.
'Nature': this group would be the first in a new hierarchy the topic of
which would be the natural world (or natural universe), the most general
use of the word. I have some support for creating this:
Jonathan Grobe (grobe at netins.net):
> I think alt.nature.mushrooms is a reasonable name and I think there are
> additional groups which would join this one in this hierarchy.
Bob (rwl at gymnet.com):
> I agree, alt.nature.* would be a very useful hierarchy.
A future .plants would fit here, as well as .planets, .stars and .quasars,
not to mention groups for nature-related attitudes and activities, such as
.joy, .hiking and .religion.
'Fungi.basidio.hymeno.homo' are shortened taxonomic names that specify
mushrooms: I don't know a lot of fungal taxonomy (in fact I just looked
this up on the Web), so if there are fungi of interest that are not
homobasidiomycetes, or if there are further sub-classifications, or if I
made a mistake here, please let me know.
The idea here is to provide room for easy further expansion of the
alt.nature hierarchy: if you like or hate this idea, please follow-up to
this message. If people generally hate it, I'll change the name to
'alt.nature.fungi.mushrooms' or 'alt.nature.mushrooms'.
'Mushrooms': the 'fruit' of the fungus, a common name most every
anglophone knows. Some people may not know what 'mycology' means.
The Topic & Traffic
-------------------
...from bionet.mycology
A fair proportion of traffic in bionet.mycology is unrelated to scientific
research, and sits anomalously next to postings with titles like
'enzymatic resolution of racemic mixtures' and 'postdoctoral position'.
The new group will be easy to find, being searchable on 'mushroom' and
'fungi', and its presence in the 'alt' hierarchy should encourage amateurs
(and some have posted here) put off by the scientific title and traffic of
bionet.mycology.
Note: This is NOT 'the splitting of bionet.mycology'. This is a completely
new group of which non-scientific postings to .myco are just one source.
...from the food groups
There are occasional questions posted to the four major food groups that
mushroom-hunters would be better at answering than cooks, e.g. 'Where do
you find MORELS??', recently posted to rec.food.cooking. I suspect the
posters feel it's not the ideal place, but at present there are no good
alternatives.
...from the drugs groups
Like it or not, some mushrooms are used for their psychedelic properties,
and many people hunt or grow these mushrooms themselves. There are quite
a few postings on the drugs groups that relate to hunting, growing,
identification, when & where to look, how to store etc. that concern
mushrooms much more than drugs. Examples from rec.drugs.psychedelic:
'PF Substrate Cakes'
'what's a "spore print"?'
'Substrate Colonization Question'
I'd like to see these posts in this group.
This is NOT a drug-specific group however, so PLEASE post 'gourmet'
mushroom-related traffic here. In fact I hope edible mushrooms will
represent the majority of traffic.
If you're really offended with the idea of sharing your group with
'shroomers, set your kill-file to filter out these subject words:
psilocybe stropharia cyanescens cubensis semilanceata azurescens
psychedelic PF psilocybin psilocin
Ta-da! The group will be magically rendered almost drug-free.
...from others
A couple of people (who I assume represent many more) have followed-up to
my original proposal saying they couldn't find a good group to discuss
hunting and growing of edible mushrooms: they didn't want to post amateur
questions to bionet.mycology, the food & cooking groups seemed off-topic
etc. This is the group for them.
If you have an opinion, please follow-up to alt.config, since a group has
to be justified for traffic before news-admins will let it be created. If
you posted before to the 'alt.mushrooms' proposal, please post again.
--
Ashley Branchfeather